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The Bell Jar (Modern Classics) Paperback – August 2, 2005
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One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels
“A coming-of-age masterpiece. . . . Sylvia Plath has become one of the influential writers of her time.” —Boston Globe
Sylvia Plath’s masterwork—an acclaimed and enduring novel about a young woman falling into the grip of mental illness and societal pressures
Esther Greenwood is a bright, beautiful, enormously talented young woman, but she's slowly going under—maybe for the last time. Sylvia Plath brilliantly draws the reader into Esther’s breakdown with such intensity that her neurosis becomes palpably real, even rational—as accessible an experience as going to the movies. A deep penetration into the darkest and most harrowing corners of the human psyche, The Bell Jar is an extraordinary accomplishment and a haunting American classic.
This edition features extra insights into the book and author.
- Print length244 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherHarper Perennial Modern Classics
- Publication dateAugust 2, 2005
- Dimensions8.02 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
- ISBN-100060837020
- ISBN-13978-0060837020
- Lexile measure1050L
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"There’s the depression of popular conception—the listless sadness of a character in a pharmaceutical advertisement—and then there's the biting, brisk, darkly comic version that Plath brings to life in The Bell Jar. It is a curiously unyielding read: Though the book is semi-autobiographical, Plath’s lucid prose belies the mystery she was and remains. . . . The Bell Jar is as frustrating and brilliant as its author." — Elizabeth Bruenig, The Atlantic
“It is this perfectly wrought prose and the freshness of Plath’s voice in The Bell Jar that make this book enduring in its appeal.” — USA Today
“Esther Greenwood’s account of her years in the bell jar is as clear and readable as it is witty and disturbing. . . . [This] is not a potboiler, nor a series of ungrateful caricatures: it is literature.” — New York Times
“The first-person narrative fixes us there, in the doctor’s office, in the asylum, in the madness, with no reassuring vacations when we can keep company with the sane and listen to their lectures.” — Washington Post
“The narrator simply describes herself as feeling very still and very empty, the way the eye of a tornado must feel. The in-between moment is just what Miss Plath’s poetry does catch brilliantly—the moment poised on the edge of chaos.” — Christian Science Monitor
"Sylvia Plath was a luminous talent. . . one of the most interesting poets in American literature." — New York Review of Books
"Movingly chronicled. . . . It's funny, intense, enormously human." — Cosmopolitan
"The Bell Jar is regarded as a coming-of-age masterpiece . . . . Sylvia Plath has become of the influential writers of her time." — Boston Globe
From the Back Cover
The Bell Jar chronicles the crack-up of Esther Greenwood: brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, and successful, but slowly going under -- maybe for the last time. Sylvia Plath masterfully draws the reader into Esther's breakdown with such intensity that Esther's insanity becomes completely real and even rational, as probable and accessible an experience as going to the movies. Such deep penetration into the dark and harrowing corners of the psyche is an extraordinary accomplishment and has made The Bell Jar a haunting American classic.
This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.
About the Author
Sylvia Plath was born in 1932 in Massachusetts. Her books include the poetry collections The Colossus, Crossing the Water, Winter Trees, Ariel, and Collected Poems, which won the Pulitzer Prize. A complete and uncut facsimile edition of Ariel was published in 2004 with her original selection and arrangement of poems. She was married to the poet Ted Hughes, with whom she had a daughter, Frieda, and a son, Nicholas. She died in London in 1963.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The Bell Jar
By Sylvia PlathHarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
Copyright ©2005 Sylvia PlathAll right reserved.
ISBN: 0060837020
Chapter One
It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York. I'm stupid about executions. The idea of being electrocuted makes me sick, and that's all there was to read about in the papers--goggle-eyed headlines staring up at me on every street corner and at the fusty, peanut-smelling mouth of every subway. It had nothing to do with me, but I couldn't help wondering what it would be like, being burned alive all along your nerves.
I thought it must be the worst thing in the world.
New York was bad enough. By nine in the morning the fake, country-wet freshness that somehow seeped in overnight evaporated like the tail end of a sweet dream. Mirage-gray at the bottom of their granite canyons, the hot streets wavered in the sun, the car tops sizzled and glittered, and the dry, cindery dust blew into my eyes and down my throat.
I kept hearing about the Rosenbergs over the radio and at the office till I couldn't get them out of my mind. It was like the first time I saw a cadaver. For weeks afterward, the cadaver's head--or what there was left of it--floated up behind my eggs and bacon at breakfast and behind the face of Buddy Willard, who was responsible for my seeing it in the first place, and pretty soon I felt as though I were carrying that cadaver's head around with me on a string, like some black, noseless balloon stinking of vinegar.
(I knew something was wrong with me that summer, because all I could think about was the Rosenbergs and how stupid I'd been to buy all those uncomfortable, expensive clothes, hanging limp as fish in my closet, and how all the little successes I'd totted up so happily at college fizzled to nothing outside the slick marble and plate-glass fronts along Madison Avenue.)
I was supposed to be having the time of my life.
I was supposed to be the envy of thousands of other college girls just like me all over America who wanted nothing more than to be tripping about in those same size-seven patent leather shoes I'd bought in Bloomingdale's one lunch hour with a black patent leather belt and black patent leather pocketbook to match. And when my picture came out in the magazine the twelve of us were working on--drinking martinis in a skimpy, imitation silver-lame bodice stuck on to a big, fat cloud of white tulle, on some Starlight Roof, in the company of several anonymous young men with all-American bone structures hired or loaned for the occasion--everybody would think I must be having a real whirl.
Look what can happen in this country, they'd say. A girl lives in some out-of-the-way town for nineteen years, so poor she can't afford a magazine, and then she gets a scholarship to college and wins a prize here and a prize there and ends up steering New York like her own private car.
Only I wasn't steering anything, not even myself. I just bumped from my hotel to work and to parties and from parties to my hotel and back to work like a numb trolleybus. I guess I should have been excited the way most of the other girls were, but I couldn't get myself to react. (I felt very still and very empty, the way the eye of a tornado must feel, moving dully along in the middle of the surrounding hullabaloo.)
There were twelve of us at the hotel.
We had all won a fashion magazine contest, by writing essays and stories and poems and fashion blurbs, and as prizes they gave us jobs in New York for a month, expenses paid, and piles and piles of free bonuses, like ballet tickets and passes to fashion shows and hair stylings at a famous expensive salon and chances to meet successful people in the field of our desire and advice about what to do with our particular complexions.
I still have the makeup kit they gave me, fitted out for a person with brown eyes and brown hair: an oblong of brown mascara with a tiny brush, and a round basin of blue eye-shadow just big enough to dab the tip of your finger in, and three lipsticks ranging from red to pink, all cased in the same little gilt box with a mirror on one side. I also have a white plastic sunglasses case with colored shells and sequins and a green plastic starfish sewed onto it.
I realized we kept piling up these presents because it was as good as free advertising for the firms involved, but I couldn't be cynical. I got such a kick out of all those free gifts showering on to us. For a long time afterward I hid them away, but later, when I was all right again, I brought them out, and I still have them around the house. I use the lipsticks now and then, and last week I cut the plastic starfish off the sunglasses case for the baby to play with.
So there were twelve of us at the hotel, in the same wing on the same floor in single rooms, one after the other, and it reminded me of my dormitory at college. It wasn't a proper hotel--I mean a hotel where there are both men and women mixed about here and there on the same floor.
This hotel--the Amazon--was for women only, and they were mostly girls my age with wealthy parents who wanted to be sure their daughters would be living where men couldn't get at them and deceive them; and they were all going to posh secretarial schools like Katy Gibbs, where they had to wear hats and stockings and gloves to class, or they had just graduated from places like Katy Gibbs and were secretaries to executives and junior executives and simply hanging around in New York waiting to get married to some career man or other.
These girls looked awfully bored to me. I saw them on the sunroof, yawning and painting their nails and trying to keep up their Bermuda tans, and they seemed bored as hell. I talked with one of them, and she was bored with yachts and bored with flying around in airplanes and bored with skiing in Switzerland at Christmas and bored with the men in Brazil.
Girls like that make me sick. I'm so jealous I can't speak. Nineteen years, and I hadn't been out of New England except for this trip to New York. It was my first big chance, but here I was, sitting back and letting it run through my fingers like so much water.
I guess one of my troubles was Doreen.
I'd never known a girl like Doreen before. Doreen came from a society girls' college down South and had bright white hair standing out in a cotton candy fluff round her head and blue eyes like transparent agate marbles, hard and polished and just about indestructible, and a mouth set in a sort of perpetual sneer. I don't mean a nasty sneer, but an amused, mysterious sneer, as if all the people around her were pretty silly and she could tell some good jokes on them if she wanted to.
Doreen singled me out right away. She made me feel I was that much sharper than the others, and she really was wonderfully funny. She used to sit next to me at the conference table, and when the visiting celebrities were talking she'd whisper witty sarcastic remarks to me under her breath.
Her college was so fashion conscious, she said, that all the girls had pocketbook covers made out of the same material as their dresses, so each time they changed their clothes they had a matching pocketbook. This kind of detail impressed me. It suggested a whole life of marvelous, elaborate decadence that attracted me like a magnet.
The only thing Doreen ever bawled me out about was bothering to get my assignments in by a deadline.
"What are you sweating over that for?" Doreen lounged on my bed in a peach silk dressing gown, filing her long, nicotine-yellow nails with an emery board, while I typed up the draft of an interview with a best-selling novelist.
That was another thing--the rest of us had starched cotton summer nighties and quilted housecoats, or maybe terry-cloth robes that doubled as beachcoats, but Doreen wore these full-length nylon and lace jobs you could half see through, and dressing gowns the color of skin, that stuck to her by some kind of electricity. She had an interesting, slightly sweaty smell that reminded me of those scallopy leaves of sweet fern you break off and crush between your fingers for the musk of them.
"You know old Jay Cee won't give a damn if that story's in tomorrow or Monday." Doreen lit a cigarette and let the smoke flare slowly from her nostrils so her eyes were veiled. "Jay Cee's ugly as sin," Doreen went on coolly. "I bet that old husband of hers turns out all the lights before he gets near her or he'd puke otherwise."
Jay Cee was my boss, and I liked her a lot, in spite of what Doreen said. She wasn't one of the fashion magazine gushers with fake eyelashes and giddy jewelry. Jay Cee had brains, so her plug-ugly looks didn't seem to matter. She read a couple of languages and knew all the quality writers in the business.
I tried to imagine Jay Cee out of her strict office suit and luncheon-duty hat and in bed with her fat husband, but I just couldn't do it. I always had a terribly hard time trying to imagine people in bed together.
Jay Cee wanted to teach me something, all the old ladies I ever knew wanted to teach me something, but I suddenly didn't think they had anything to teach me. I fitted the lid on my typewriter and clicked it shut.
Doreen grinned. "Smart girl."
Somebody tapped at the door.
"Who is it?" I didn't bother to get up.
Continues...
Excerpted from The Bell Jarby Sylvia Plath Copyright ©2005 by Sylvia Plath. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Product details
- Publisher : Harper Perennial Modern Classics; 1st edition (August 2, 2005)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 244 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0060837020
- ISBN-13 : 978-0060837020
- Lexile measure : 1050L
- Item Weight : 2.31 pounds
- Dimensions : 8.02 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #746 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #16 in Contemporary Literature & Fiction
- #34 in Classic Literature & Fiction
- #107 in Literary Fiction (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
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About the author

Sylvia Plath was born in 1932 in Massachusetts. Her books include the poetry collections The Colossus, Crossing the Water, Winter Trees, Ariel, and The Collected Poems, which won the Pulitzer Prize. Plath is credited with being a pioneer of the 20th-century style of writing called confessional poetry. Her poem "Daddy" is one of the best-known examples of this genre.
In 1963, Plath's semi-autobiographic novel The Bell Jar was published under the pseudonym "Victoria Lucas"; it was reissued in 1966 under her own name. A complete and uncut facsimile edition of Ariel was published in 2004 with her original selection and arrangement of poems. She was married to the poet Ted Hughes, with whom she had a daughter, Frieda, and a son, Nicholas. She died in London in 1963.
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Customers find the book easy to read and enjoyable. They praise the writing quality as clear, precise, relatable, and attainable. The book provides insightful perspectives into mental illness and choices. Readers appreciate the personable character development and autobiographical elements. Overall, they describe the book as an entertaining, satisfying read that keeps them engaged throughout.
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Customers find the book engaging and enjoyable to read. They appreciate the author's writing style and the thought-provoking narrative. The book is described as a classic and thought-provoking.
"...offers additional insights, including author interviews and recommended readings, enriching the reader's experience and understanding of this..." Read more
"...I’d even dare say she wasn’t ABOUT feminism. She was a brilliant, beautiful, thoughtful and inspiring female writer of her time. A stand out...." Read more
"...It’s a valuable read, but one that should be approached with an awareness of its historical and cultural limitations." Read more
"I have no bad words to say about this book it is so amazing the writing feels like it could be published today. Does not feel like a classic at all...." Read more
Customers find the writing style engaging and relatable. They describe the prose as matter-of-fact, precise, and beautiful. Readers appreciate the author's unique way of describing things and her strong critical voice.
"...The Bell Jar" remains a haunting classic, celebrated for its compelling prose and its exploration of mental illness in a world that often fails to..." Read more
"...A stand out. Using words so relatable and attainable, you swear you’re talking to her in this novel or should I say she’s talking to you...." Read more
"...It is a very sincere, genuine, and realistic narrative of mental illness and how it feels...." Read more
"...The Bell Jar does an amazing job at explaining an overcomplicated love triangle as well as a love-hate relationship with work life, friendships, and..." Read more
Customers appreciate the book's insightful reportage and relevant content. They find it inspiring and readable, providing an insightful perspective on mental illness from a historical perspective. The book is described as powerful in parts and a great view of depression.
"...This P.S. edition also offers additional insights, including author interviews and recommended readings, enriching the reader's experience and..." Read more
"...The book is quite powerful in places. There is a scene where she is out with a man and he attempts to rape her...." Read more
"...She could punch you in the stomach with her words and inspire you on the next page. She could describe tragedy like it would be a relief...." Read more
"Sylvia Plath's "The Bell Jar" is a seminal work in feminist literature, articulating the struggles and societal expectations placed on women during..." Read more
Customers find the book's character development engaging. They appreciate the author's personal experiences as a main character and how relatable her neurosis is made understandable. The protagonist's voice rings true, making her neurosis relatable and tragically understandable. The realistic novel reveals much about the human mind and how powerful it is.
"...expertly captures the intensity of Esther's breakdown, making her neurosis both relatable and tragically understandable, as she spirals deeper into..." Read more
"...I'm sure everyone at this point is aware it's autobiographical, a Roman à clef, and will be saying "Well, we know what happened to the author."..." Read more
"...The book has an interesting autobiographical element to it and this version has a superb section about the life of Plath, which I found fascinating..." Read more
"...give too much away, but I will say that Plath does a remarkable job of creating a character for whom her readers will likely experience many..." Read more
Customers find the book engaging and entertaining. They describe it as a satisfying and powerful read that makes them think. Readers are excited to re-read and add to their book collection. The sentences are witty and harrowing without wasting words.
"...All in all, I thought Plath’s novel was quite satisfying and powerful despite its flaws. I would liken it to blues music...." Read more
"...I thought it well written. It was entertaining, I mean, it kept my attention...." Read more
"...I read it in one sitting, and it was an afternoon well spent...." Read more
"...The racial violence and racism in the book is upsetting and distracting. The story stays stuck in the limits of its time...." Read more
Customers enjoy the book's humor. They find the narration witty and rhythmic. The words create a mood throughout the story, and readers feel the inner turmoil of the story. They appreciate the feminist subtleties and outright remarks touching the subject of women.
"...The novel is dark, it deals with depression and suicide, but it also has humor, and it was in some of the humor that I felt like Plath’s voice..." Read more
"...rich and complex; her words are so intense and precise, yet humorous at times with its scathing and biting observations...." Read more
"...It's surprisingly and disturbingly sad and funny at the same time...." Read more
"...He also enjoyed her observations, which were at times witty and clever. But he felt the book was lacking. Then there's me...." Read more
Customers have different views on the emotional depth of the book. Some find it relatable and expressing real suffering without filter. They also mention strong feelings behind Esther's life experiences as a woman. However, others feel there is no engaging storyline and it's a very dark, sad tale. The constant switching up of the storyline is confusing for some readers.
"...The Bell Jar" remains a haunting classic, celebrated for its compelling prose and its exploration of mental illness in a world that often fails to..." Read more
"...though it is an actual object in the room it perfectly describes her feelings for Buddy Willard, it is an objective correlate in T.S. Eliot’s terms...." Read more
"...It's just too sad. But if you are into Plath's poetry, I'm sure you are no stranger to her type of writing. It is almost like her autobiography." Read more
"...She was a brilliant, beautiful, thoughtful and inspiring female writer of her time. A stand out...." Read more
Customers have different views on the pacing of the book. Some find it compelling and engaging, with strong delivery of dramatic events. They appreciate the fascinating Plath life section. Others feel the book is jumpy and confusing, with jarring transitions between events. The last page is also mentioned as disappointing, and some readers felt it was a blah ending.
"...likes of a Harold Bloom (I hate Harold Bloom, by the way), but it is primal, and it is beautiful in the same way that a scream is sometimes more..." Read more
"...The Bell Jar became a complicated story for me that was not well organized...." Read more
"...of mental health and the pressures faced by women is both intense and moving, offering a vivid critique of the limited roles available to women at..." Read more
"...It holds up in so many respects that I was a bit shocked...." Read more
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Classic !!
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- Reviewed in the United States on February 3, 2025I have no bad words to say about this book it is so amazing the writing feels like it could be published today. Does not feel like a classic at all. To follow her through her life and slowly getting worse chills you completely. Then to find out the Arthur herself was no longer with us a month later after publishing this book. Will haunt me forever
- Reviewed in the United States on January 28, 2016I read this book almost a year ago now and I am just now getting around to writing my review. Luckily, I took some notes but it is still not super fresh in my memory, so I apologize for that, though, perhaps, I have a little more perspective on it now (that is what I am going to claim anyway). My overall impression of the book was of a somewhat flawed novel (more on the flaws later), but also a novel that transcends its flaws, to some degree at least, through raw emotional power. It may not be polished, or accomplished, or refined enough for the likes of a Harold Bloom (I hate Harold Bloom, by the way), but it is primal, and it is beautiful in the same way that a scream is sometimes more beautiful and powerful than the most refined poetry. The novel is dark, it deals with depression and suicide, but it also has humor, and it was in some of the humor that I felt like Plath’s voice really came through most convincingly. I will simply list what I think some of the virtues and some of the flaws of the novel are.
One flaw, I think, is Plath’s over-reliance on metaphor. Plath often attempts to come up with a powerful metaphor to describe the state of mind of her protagonist. Her metaphors are sometimes powerful and beautiful but I think she uses them too much. I think there are generally more powerful ways to convey a character’s state of mind. For example, in The Catcher in the Rye - a novel I may be referencing a lot since there are a lot of similarities between the two novels and because I think Salinger’s novel is ultimately more successful - there is a scene where Holden is quite depressed and he is riding in a Taxi cab. He reaches back into his hair and feels that some of the dampness in his air has turned to ice. This physical description is actually a more powerful way to convey Holden’s depression than a metaphor (rather than saying “I felt a loneliness as deep as the ocean”, etc.). Tone of voice can also convey a great deal. If the novel is narrated in an hysterical tone of voice, or one of the characters takes on an hysterical tone of voice, it often draws the reader right into the state of mind of the character rather than using a metaphor to describe it from the outside.
I will say that sometimes Plath's metaphors are right on the money. In one scene Esther is waiting in a waiting room to see Buddy Willard, who is a boy that she has been dating, and it is clear he is much more enthused about the relationship than she is. While she is waiting she sees a fountain and “The fountain spurted a few inches into the air from a rough length of pipe, threw up its hands, collapsed and drowned its ragged ribble in a stone basin of yellowing water.” I like this metaphor for two reasons. First, she is describing an actual physical object in the environment so its use as a metaphor here is disguised. Second, even though it is an actual object in the room it perfectly describes her feelings for Buddy Willard, it is an objective correlate in T.S. Eliot’s terms. She is trying to be excited about seeing Buddy but all she can muster is a spurt that winds up just dribbling down and drowning in its own depths. Plath is also sometimes able to convey mood powerfully without relying on metaphors: in her descriptions of her hot baths, for instance, I think we get a better feeling for her depression than in her metaphors.
Another flaw is: I do not think that the character of Esther Greenwood is as well developed as Holden Caulfield. What was Esther like before her episode of depression? Throughout the novel she can sometimes be quite cruel. Is that a result of the distorting effects of the bell jar or was that always a part of her personality? We learn that she is ambitious, and a good student, and we pick up bits and pieces here and there, but the character is vague, and her voice as a narrator is too literary to reveal much about her character. Holden does not narrate in the voice of a writer but Esther does. It feels like it is written in third-person, by Sylvia Plath, even though it is written in first-person, and is supposed to be the first-person narration of Esther Greenwood the character. When Esther says, at the very beginning of the book, “By nine in the morning the fake, country-wet freshness that somehow seeped in overnight evaporated like the tail end of a sweet dream” (1) it does not feel like a character speaking to us, it feels like a writing exercise. It is a well written sentence but it is not in the voice of the character. It is generic literary language, as is the line “Slowly I swam up from the bottom of a black sleep” (50). Compare this to a writer like Celine whose narrators speak in colloquial language mos of the time but can also utter a passage of the most beautiful poetry without it seeming like a literary device; it feels like it comes from the character and is something they would actually say.
The book is quite powerful in places. There is a scene where she is out with a man and he attempts to rape her. It was a frightening scene that I thought did a great job of conveying her helplessness and fear. I have often pondered the difference between seeing violence in a movie or reading about violence in a piece of literature and seeing violence in real life. A lot of the writers I like have a fairly violent aesthetic. Cormac McCarthy, for example. Violence in the works of Cormac McCarthy conveys some kind of aesthetic emotion that is difficult to describe but it is very different from the feeling one has when one sees violence in real life. I have been in a few situations in my life where violence suddenly erupted without warning and the adrenaline starts flowing immediately. It is not an aesthetic or contemplative emotion at all. I thought the scene where the man attempts to rape Esther succeeded in conveying the kind of emotion one feels when violence is actually witnessed. It made the reader feel, to some degree, what it would feel like to actually be in a situation, rather than contemplating it from an aesthetic distance.
I thought Plath’s use of foreshadowing was also a mixed bag. Foreshadowing is a great way to draw the reader in and keep their attention and their interest. I will say, I never had trouble remaining interested in Plath’s novel, but there were some foreshadows that failed to pay off. Very early in the book Esther makes reference to a corpose that Buddy makes her see. I was sort of expecting a pay off, and while Esther does eventually narrate the scene, it does not have a huge impact. On the other hand, there is some brilliant foreshadowing in the opening when Esther is contemplating the execution of the Rosenbergs when Esther can’t help wondering what it would be like to be burned alive “along all your nerves”, which foreshadows her own electroshock therapy.
All in all, I thought Plath’s novel was quite satisfying and powerful despite its flaws. I would liken it to blues music. I am not a music historian, and I actually know very little about the history of the blues, but the analogy to me is this: the blues musicians did not possess all the musical training or sophistication of the great composers. They were not composing music that was as complex or refined as Mozart or Beethoven. But, they managed to express themselves very powerfully with the means at their disposal. In some ways, more powerfully than the more refined composers. They were expressing real suffering, without filter, and people respond to it on a gut level. I think Plath’s novel is like blues music in that way. While there are some flaws in her technique no one can doubt that she is expressing something real and that connects with people. Which is why I think this novel is still so popular in spite of naysayers like Harold Bloom. Critics often attempt to tell artists how they should go about expressing themselves, as if they were trying to channel the waters of a flood, but water has a tendency to follow its own will and explode wherever it wants, and I think we should be grateful for that.
- Reviewed in the United States on February 17, 2025Very very good book. Highly recommend for anyone interested in women’s struggles with mental health concerns throughout the time period
- Reviewed in the United States on March 12, 2022For years I avoided Sylvia Plath, especially “The Bell Jar”. I did not want to dwell in a world that I had known only to well with family and friends. Looking for some poetry to read, I decided after all this time to pick up “Ariel”. The initial poems of the collection left me wanting more and then I became fixated on a few that kept running through my head like a broken record.
Next, I decided to read her novel. But, I found it’s relentless and myopic focus hard to internalize, for how can any have hope of recovery in world so limited and narrow minded as to regard every sorrow, every grief, and every dissatisfaction as part of the big “I”. To recover from depression or manic obsessions, one must acknowledge the collective unconscious presence of consciousness. It’s an essential step and platform from which to discover a self free to be happy in sad times, to be hopeful in times filled wit despair, most importantly to feel connected in times of despondent loneliness. There is a thin line between the choice to live and the the choice to die. Sometimes that choice can turned from negative to positive based upon the light of the mind. When turned off, the life goes black. When turned on, life can be full of light. There is a reality that no matter how hard you try for others, the choice might be disappointing to you. Regardless, the the ability to choose, or to be reminded of the choice is in itself the stuff of being a part of the active collective (un)conscious.
“The Bell Jar” left me feeling depleted. There was little or no hope there, as there sadly was not in this great poet’s life. Her life wasn’t an act of unbridled narcissism. It was encased in a state of nihilism, where she where she wanted to happy-but her choices were limited. Often when a person is gifted and intellectually blessed, they are able to counter every effort of recovery by using those gifted aspects of their personality with authoritative negativity. In the end game, the down to earth choices to live or to die are measured against seemingly impossible odds which churn in their mind like a summer tornado, until that person becomes aware of the fragile nature of the “superior mind”. The discovery often comes too late. And the gradients of choice cannot be absorbed into a digestive tract that is healthy and fruitful in the final analysis. Or, it can work; that’s the beauty of choice.
- Reviewed in the United States on February 16, 2025Fantastic classic novel. Everyone should read it.
- Reviewed in the United States on February 22, 2025I don’t know how I’ve gone so long without ever reading this book, as it’s considered a classic and to some, a rite of passage for all girls to read it. While I feel late to the party, I’m actually glad I read this with some life experience under my belt. It is a very sincere, genuine, and realistic narrative of mental illness and how it feels. I could empathize with some of the feelings and felt validated through parts of this story. I think I would have missed that, had I read it as a teenager or even young adult.
- Reviewed in the United States on January 27, 2025A beautiful book that’s narrative kept me drawn in the entire time. Was able to finish in 1 day!
Top reviews from other countries
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JaquelineReviewed in Mexico on January 11, 2025
5.0 out of 5 stars increíble
de los mejores libros que he leido
- TinaleeReviewed in Canada on December 16, 2024
5.0 out of 5 stars Different but good
A little different then her normal work but still a great read
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LorReviewed in Brazil on November 6, 2024
5.0 out of 5 stars Simplesmente perfeito
Amo Sylvia Plath
- Suzy PReviewed in the United Kingdom on February 12, 2025
5.0 out of 5 stars A lively, sensitive novel
I had not known that Sylvia Plath wrote a novel, so was surprised to see this advertised. It starts off very bright and cheerful but, as time goes on, she becomes more involved in the lives of friends, whose experiences are often graphically described. Well worth having and of course I am sorry she did not survive to write more novels. She is very sensitive to all that happens around her. I should add that I have not yet got to the end!
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SasaReviewed in Germany on January 19, 2025
5.0 out of 5 stars Sylvia hat es einfach drauf
Die Frau war eine Legende!
Absolute Leseempfehlung